What does ||= (or-equals) mean in Ruby?

Question

What does the following code mean in Ruby?

||=

Does it have any meaning or reason for the syntax?

Answer 1

This is the default assignment notation

for example: x ||= 1
this will check to see if x is nil or not. If x is indeed nil it will then assign it that new value (1 in our example)

more explicit:
if x == nil
x = 1
end